HS2 Old Oak Common Station wins planning approval - 22/05/20

Old Oak Common Station, HS2’s West London super-hub, was granted planning permission by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) on Tuesday 19th May! The green light means that work can progress on building what will be the largest new railway station ever built in the UK. The station will have 14 platforms, a mix of six high speed and eight conventional service platforms, with a 850m long station box, with a volume to fit 6,300 Routemaster buses.

Most excitingly for us at Expedition, our design efforts to minimise the environmental impact of the largest new-build station in UK – saving 2700 tonnes of carbon in the material in the roof structure, developing a novel drainage scheme which follows the natural flow of water to reduce operational energy, reducing the foundation material volumes and cost, and improving the buildability of the ground floor slab – will all be realised very soon.

A joint venture of Balfour Beatty, Vinci and Systra (BBVS) were awarded the contract to build the new HS2 station in September 2019 and are set to begin work on site next month.

Matthew Botelle, HS2 Ltd’s Stations Director said:

“The planning approval for the Old Oak Common super-hub station is an important milestone in the delivery of Britain’s new world-class low carbon railway. Building a new railway station for the UK on this scale and size will be an incredible achievement for British engineering.”

Liz Peace, Chair of OPDC said:

“The approval of HS2’s Old Oak Common Station design marks a significant milestone in the delivery of this nationally important project. The new station will unlock a huge regeneration opportunity, bringing billions of pounds of investment into the local community and the wider UK economy.”

For more information on the project’s planning permission, see HS2’s article. For more information on the team involved in the project and our work, see the project page and read about the savings our team achieved through optimisation of the roof structure in this news piece.